DINOSAURS AMONG US?
There is scientific value in using modern animals as analogues for those that went extinct millions of years ago. But it has to be done carefully, and any inferences made about dinosaurs’ lives and behaviours based on those of living species come with a plenty of caveats. Palaeontologists limit the species they’re analysing using a technique called ‘phylogenetic bracketing’, where they look at the evolutionary tree to which the extinct animal belongs and the existing animals that are closely related to it. The result is that if we wish to know about any aspect of dinosaur biology or anatomy not preserved in fossils, we can look to its closest living relatives for clues.
Zip it
It’s impossible to know what sounds dinosaurs made as their noise-making organs have not been preserved. But both crocodilians and birds (which share a common ancestor with dinosaurs) possess a larynx. Crocodiles and large birds, such as emus, use this organ to make deep, rumbling sounds, so it’s possible that dinosaurs did too. But rather than open their mouths or beaks to let out these noises, they use their puffed-out necks or chests as reverberating chambers. So even if T. rex did roar, chances are it didn’t do it with a wide-open mouth.
Chicken dance
Modern birds are different from theropods like T. rex and Velociraptor as they have substantially shorter tails, wider hips and rely on their knees more than their hips to move their legs. In an effort to compensate for these differences and better understand the locomotion in ancient theropods, scientists attached long, tail-like prostheses to the rear ends of chickens. The birds learnt to walk with more of a ‘dinosaur gait’, proving that birds still have this ability even if aspects of their proportions undergo change.
Claw-some
Dromaeosaurids, the theropod family that includes Velociraptor, often had large, curved and pointed claws on their feet that were held up off the ground. It was thought that the animal would stand on one leg and kick at a prey animal to disembowel it using its claw. But this technique is not used by any modern predator. By examining the hunting behaviour of owls, hawks and eagles, which have similarly clawed feet, researchers have come to the conclusion that these dinosaurs used their claws to pin down prey while attacking it with their mouths.